Kashmir separatist leader Mohammad Yasin Malik here Monday lambasted the Indian media for what he called fighting India’s war in Kashmir.

“The Indian media is fighting India’s war in Kashmir,” Malik told a news conference here Monday.

“They are fighting in Kashmir with their pens the way Indian troops are fighting Kashmirs with their guns,” he added.

Malik was talking to media Monday a day after his Safar-e-Azadi (Journey for Freedom) was stopped by police in Doda district of Kashmir.

The Safar-e-Azadi which the JKLF leader launched earlier this year in Kashmir
continued for 114 days in Kashmir Valley before moving to Jammu province, where it was halted before its resumption.

Slamming the Indian media, Malik said that the programme which ran in Kashmir for more than 100 days, and evoked “wide participation” of people was no event for the Indian media.

Even the British gave Gandhi’s Dandhi March a political space, and the march which ran only for 29 days was covered by British journalists, Malik said.

Malik’s JKLF was first to take up gun for fighting Indian rule in the region. He shunned the gun in 1994 to carry a “non-violent struggle”.

He said Safar-e-Azadi was a collective democratic message of the people of Kashmir but despite a huge public response in the region it did not get the attention of the Indian media.

Malik said that people in India apart from the insurgency-hit Indian administered Kashmir, and Naxalite-hit Northeast were also taking up arms to solve their local issue.

He blamed media for this trend saying that almost all media organisations were wedded to “national interest” and would do anything to push things under the carpet which they think go against Indian interests.